


Flip The Bird

by alessandralee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 18:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2517500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance Hunter knows from personal experience that dating one of his sister's bandmates is not a good idea, but Flip The Bird's new drummer, Skye, is hard for him to resist. Will a girl who's heard his horror stories really be interested in him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scout's Honor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [demonsorceress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonsorceress/gifts), [valkyrierising](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrierising/gifts).



> One of the many AU idea lists circulating tumblr included the prompt "you’re the drummer for my brothers band and i find you really hot AU." Jaz and Julia convinced me to tweak it a little bit, and this is what happened.
> 
> All three chapters are written already. Chapter 2 will be up tomorrow and I'll post chapter 3 on Tuesday.

“Practice starts in a half hour,” Victoria tells him when he throws himself down on the couch at her and Izzy’s place. She doesn’t even look up from her magazine. Sometimes he thinks she might actually have eyes in the back of her head.

“I know.”

“She’s just gonna throw you out, Lance.”

“I’d like to see her try.”

Victoria sets down her magazine and turns towards him. She’s smirking. That’s never a good sign.

“You mean the way she did last time you tried to weasel your way into band practice?”

He cringes at the memory of Izzy dragging him out of the house and handing him off to an amused Mack.

But he ignores her comment. In fact, he ignores her entirely. At least, he pretends to. They sit in silence, and Victoria returns to her magazine. Lance has never been good with silence, a fact that Victoria knows. She’s torturing him.

He watches as the clock on the wall ticks forward three painful minutes. He even considers asking Victoria about her magazines, but that could only go one of two ways. Either he says something, she ignores him, and she wins, or she spouts off something about Eastern European noise-pop, he fails to come up with a response, and she wins.

She wins far too often for him to just give her an opportunity like that.

So he keeps his mouth shut. How he sister ended up dating the world’s biggest music snob is beyond him.

He’s lying on his back, counting the ceiling tiles when the aforementioned sister finally appears.

“No,” she says when she spots him on the couch.

“I’ll be good,” he promises, sitting up. “Scouts honor.”

Izzy drops her keys and a case of beer on the kitchen counter and then leans on it, looking into the living room at him.

“You were kicked out of Boy Scouts after three days.”

One of the major downsides to having an older sister is that she knows everything about you, and is not afraid to hold it against you in an argument. Even things that happened when you were five.

 

Once again, he has nothing to say.

Izzy used to let him hang out at band practice all the time. That’s how he’d met Bobbi, the band’s lead singer. What a mistake that relationship had been. In the four months since they’d broken up, he’d been completely banned from band practice.

Of course Mack, who only knew Izzy and Bobbi through him, was still invited to come. In fact, Izzy went out of her way to make sure Mack and Idaho knew they were invited to all of the band’s shows.

At least he was still allowed to go the shows.

The doorbell buzzes. Izzy shoots him a glare that Lance interprets as ‘if that’s Bobbi, you’d better jump out the window to avoid her.’

He bets Victoria would help him out.

But it’s not Bobbi, thankfully. It’s someone he’s never met before.

She looks to be only a few inches shorter than, with dark hair cut into blunt bangs. She’s wearing a purple flannel over a gray Criss Cross Kings t-shirt.

Lance loves the Criss Cross Kings.

“Sorry I’m so early,” she says to Izzy, not even noticing him. “I just have so much crap to set up, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get here before everyone else.”

She’s gorgeous.

“No problem,” Izzy insists. “Maybe we’ll actually start on time for once, then.”

She still hasn’t noticed him, so Lance glares at his sister until she remembers he’s there.

“Skye,” she says, “you’ve already met Vic.”

Victoria lifts a hand in acknowledgement.

“And this is my brother Lance.”

“Oh,” is Skye’s response.

Clearly she’s already been told about him and Bobbi. Great. He doesn’t have a chance in hell.

“I mean, it’s nice to meet you,” she recovers, and sticks a hand out to shake.

“Lance, this is Skye, our new drummer.”

He absently shakes Skye’s hand, distracted for a minute by this announcement.

“New drummer?” he asks. “What happened to May?”

Lance liked May, for all that she clearly never liked him much. That made her the only person whose opinion of him didn’t drastically change post-Bobbi.

“She got a spot on Natasha Romanoff’s new tour. It was kind of last minute, but she introduced us to Skye, so it’s all good.”

When Lance turns back to Skye, she’s looking back and forth between him and Izzy, clearly confused about something.

“Is there a particular reason you’re looking at us like we’ve grown three heads?” he asks.

“You’re British,” is all she said.

“Yes.”

He’s not really sure how that’s confusing her. The accent's pretty straightforward.

It’s Izzy who pieces together what Skye’s getting at and clarifies, “We’re half siblings. I was raised here by my mom, and Lance was raised in London by our father.”

It’s an oversimplification of things, really. But Lance can see why Izzy might not want to delve into their complicated family dynamics with something she doesn’t know very well yet.

“And then I moved to the States so I could have some quality bonding time with my beloved big sis,” he teases as he moves in to pinch Izzy’s cheek.

“She catches his write a few inches from her face and twist it behind his back.

“Uncle,” he cries before she even gets to the painful part. He knows she could if she wanted to. Best to spare himself.

“Anyway,” Victoria speaks up. She’s put down her magazine and gone to the kitchen to the kitchen for one of the beers Izzy brought home, “Lance was just leaving.”

Of course she’s been keeping an eye on the clock.

“Right,” he says. “It was lovely meeting you, Skye. If you’d ever like to get together to discuss the Criss Cross Kings, great band by the way, Izzy knows where to find me.”

“In a ditch on the side of the road, if you keep this up,” Izzy snarks.

That would not be the first time he’s heard that particular threat. At least with Izzy he knows she doesn’t mean it.

“Okay, I get it. Leaving now.”

And he’s out the door, but not before winking at Skye over his shoulder when Izzy turns around to grab a beer.


	2. Better Off Dead

When Lance checks his phone midway through his lunch shift at Sitwell’s Bar and Grill, there’s a text waiting from Mack.

‘ _Leaving at 9:30_ ’ is all it says.

‘ _For what?_ ‘ he texts back. He doesn’t remember making plans to go out tonight. Idaho said something about some superhero movie coming out soon, but he doesn’t think that’s until next week.

‘ _FTB 10:30 set @ The Shield_ ’

FTB is short for Flip the Bird, Izzy’s band. And The Shield is the club Idaho sometimes tends bar at. Lance doesn’t think he’s working tonight.

This is the first he’s hearing about the show. Of course Izzy told Mack about it and not him.

He texts back that he’ll be ready to go at 9:30 and returns to check on his tables. Only three more hours until he’s free from the smell of fried food.

\----

They make it to The Shield right as the open act is finishing up their set. As soon as they’ve found a table off to the side of the stage Mack heads backstage to help the band set up their equipment.

Lance orders beers for himself and Idaho, and when he returns Victoria’s taken a seat at their table. She’s absorbed in her phone, basically ignoring Idaho, who’s looking around the crowded club like he’s desperate to escape.

“Vic,” Lance greets her as he sets the beers down on the table. “I would’ve gotten you something, but I thought you’d be backstage with Iz.”

Actually, he hadn’t thought of her at all, but that seemed like an unnecessarily rude thing to say.

She doesn’t say anything in return, just lifts a short glass of amber liquid. He thinks it’s whiskey.

“Guess you’re all set, then,” he mumbles to himself, knowing she won’t respond.

While the band sets up, Idaho entertains Lance with stories about the kids at the after-school program he works at during the day. He loves the job, even though he’d probably make more money if he was bartending more often than two nights a week.

About ten minutes before the band’s set to go on, Fitz joins them. He’s the best friend of the band keyboardist, Jemma, and a very skittish person, always tugging at the threads of on of his cardigans. The only people he doesn’t seem to be nervous around are Jemma and Mack. Lance has been trying for months to get the guy to warm up to him, and he’s made a bit of headway. Fitz now makes eye contact with him most of the time.

“Good to see ya, Fitz,” Lance greets him and quickly downs the remaining half of his beer. “I was about to buy another round, can I get you something?”

Fitz nods and Lance asks Idaho and Victoria if they want anything. They both decline at Lance joins the growing crowd at the bar.

He orders three beers, knowing will finish helping the ladies soon. Sure enough, but the time he returns to their table, Mack is there is Fitz is animatedly explaining something. Unlike Lance, Mack warrants not just excited conversation from Fitz, but wild hand gestures.

Lance sips at his beer for a couple of minutes, before the band takes the stage. Like habit, his eyes zero in on Bobbi. She plugs in her guitar and tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder, then steps up to the mic.

“Thanks for coming out tonight,” she greets the crowd. “For those of you who don’t know, we’re Flip the Bird. This song is called Forgive You, Forget You.”

Lance has heard this song plenty of times, and he knows it’s written about an old girlfriend of Izzy’s. Lucky for him, the band shares writing duties, so he won’t spend the entire night listening to Bobbi sing about what a terrible person he is. Thank god for small miracles.

The band plays three songs in a row, and Lance finds his eyes constantly drawn to Skye. She’s set back from the rest of the band, behind her drum kit, but he can see her through the space between Bobbi and Akela, the band’s bassist.

Skye is completely lost in the music, her hair splaying out wildly as her arms beat against the drums. Her face is pink with exertion, but her lips alternate between a broad grin and being pushed together in concentration. If he thought about it, Lance would be surprised that more people aren’t staring.

Apparently the focus of his gaze is obvious, because when the band stops playing and he rejoins reality, both Mack and Idaho are giving him dirty looks.

When he makes eye contact with them, Mack shakes his head in warning and Idaho mouths the word ‘not again.’

They might be too late. 

Lance pretends not to notice them.

When Bobbi introduces the next song, ‘Better Off Dead,” Lance decides it’s time for another beer. He really doesn’t need a new song to remind him exactly what she thinks of him now.

Mack cuts in front of him at the bar and orders two waters before Lance can say anything.

“Pace yourself,” he shouts over the music as he pushes a plastic cup into Lance’s hand.

By the time they push through the crowd in front of the stage to get back to their table, the band has moved onto their slowest song, a piano ballad Jemma wrote called ‘Undercover Lover.’

Fortunately, Lance only has to endure one make song written at his expense before the band finishes their set. Unfortunately, it’s enough to make even Fitz give him a pitying look and a pat on the back.

When the band finishes, Mack excuses himself again to help take down their equipment. Lance attempts to win Fitz over by asking about the class he’s TAing, but just ends up nodding and smiling like he isn’t confused by every other word that comes out of the other man’s mouth. He’s pretty sure Fitz thinks he’s bored.

Soon enough the band materializes from backstage. Lance congratulates Jemma and Akela on a great show while trying to pretend his sister and Victoria aren’t groping each other only a few inches away.

When Bobbi walks past him to the bar without so much as meeting his eyes, Lance decides it’s a good time to take a bathroom break. He’d like to avoid any discussion of the two new songs the band debuted tonight. No need to add insult to injury. 

He’s waiting for someone to mop up vomit in the men’s room when he sees Skye out of the corner of his eye. She ducks out of a side door, phone pressed to her ear, and Lance decides he really doesn’t have to use the bathroom and follows her.

The sudden rush of noise that exits the club when he opens the door startles Skye, and she jumps before turning around to see who followed her. That’s when Lance considers that it might have been creepy of him to follow her like this. But when she sees it’s only him, she smiles and holds up one finger before going back to her phone conversation.

“I’m serious, it’s fine,” she says to whoever on the other end of the line. “You’ll totally make it to the next one. I’m sure the sign would’ve been great. I’ll see you next weekend. Love you too.”

Boyfriend?” he asks when she hangs up the phone.

He’s not sure why it’s just occurring to him that a girl as gorgeous as Skye probably has a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, although he’s sure Izzy would have made a point of mentioning that to him after their meeting at her place.

Girls with boyfriends are a deal-breaker. He’d pursued that once or twice in the past, and it hadn’t ended well at all. He might still make plenty of mistakes when it came to dating, but he wouldn’t do that again.

“My dad,” she clarifies. “He’s out of town on business and wanted to check in on me. And tell me he’s sorry he missed my rockstar debut. He even made a sign.”

She blushes slightly when she confesses that last part.

He laughs.

“A sign?”

“He can be a little overenthusiastic. He tries to compensate for the fourteen years I spent in fostercare before he adopted me.”

Lance is surprised by her admission, although he does his best not to show it.

“It sounds nice, actually,” he offers.

And it does. He and his father never got along well, and ever since Lance dropped out of school to wait tables while he figured out what the hell he wanted to do with is life, things between them have been downright awful. Lots of ignoring phone calls and passive aggressive voicemails and conversations held through his mother.

“It is, most of the time,” she admits. “He’s actually the one who signed me up for drum lessons. He thought it would help me channel my emotions.”

“And did it?” he asks.

“Most of the time,” she says with a devilish grin that shoots right though him.

Skye goes on to explain that she spent most of her childhood being tossed from foster home to foster home, before being taken in by a man named Phil Coulson. After living with him for six months, he decided to formally adopt her.

She asks him a few questions about his parents, but when his answers are vague, she stops questioning and turns the conversation back to herself.

Lance nods along as Skye tells him stories about how hard it was for a single guy in his forties to adopt a teenage girl.

“But he kept fighting for it… me. I couldn’t believe someone was willing to put in that much effort for me.”

“Sounds like the dream for a foster kid.”

“One I’d given up on at that point,” there are tears brimming in her eyes. “Hpd, I can’t believe I’m dumping on you like this. You much be so bored.”

“Not at all,” he insists, and he means it. When she shivers in the cool air, he adds,” But maybe we should head inside.”

She nods and he pulls the door to the club open.

“Skye,” he says as she ducks under his arm to walk back inside, “would you like to tell me more about your dad sometime? Or about something else? Maybe over drinks?”

It’s a shot in the dark and he knows it, made less likely by his awkward delivery. But she actually seems to be considering it, despite the fact that she’s undoubtedly heard about how badly he fucked things up with Bobbi.

“No pressure,” he assures her. “If I turn out to be an awful date you can dump a drink on my head. Or write a song about me, I understand I’m excellent songwriting fodder.”

This makes her smile.

“Sure,” she agrees, and walks back over to join their friends, leaving a stunned Lance in her wake.


	3. Elephant In The Room

The night of his date with Skye, Lance is extremely nervous. It’s only his second date since he and Bobbi broke up, and the first ended with him drunk crying in bed as he watched the action movie he and Bobbi saw on their first date.

At least tonight can’t go any worse that that. Probably.

Still, he changes his shirt three times. And then Mack and Idaho tease him about wearing khakis on a first date. He’s about to go and change again when Izzy lets herself into the apartment.

“Is this the part where you threaten me? I break her heart you break my face or something?” he asks her.

“Yes,” she tells him bluntly. “Skye’s a great drummer and a good person. I’d really like it if you didn’t scare her off.”

“I’m not going to scare her off,” he insists.

“At least not on the first date,” Mack pipes up from his seat on the couch.

“Yeah, it usually takes him at least a month until they realize he’s crazy. And Skye seems smart enough to cut all ties to him before that,” Idaho adds.

With friends like his, who needs enemies? Lance is pretty sure cutting all ties is the last thing Izzy wants to hear right now.

“I’m serious, Lance. I have no idea what she sees in you, Bobbi’s told her all the horror stories,” Lance winces at that, but at least he knows for certain now. “Don’t fuck this up. I can’t have you calling me in tears again.”

It’s the first time she’s expressed concern for his well being rather than just Skye’s, and it’s probably all he’s going to get. He and Izzy aren’t exactly the touchy feely type when it comes to each other. Still, it’s nice to know she worries about him just the tiniest bit.

“Well as much as I appreciate the tough love,” he tells her and gives her a brief hug, “I’m certainly going to ruin things if your threats make me late to meet her.”

He grabs his keys and heads for his car, leaving Izzy to spend the night playing video games with Mack and Idaho.

He forgets about his decision to change out of the khakis until he gets to the bar. Oh well.

He walks into Blake’s Tiki Bar with five minutes to spare, but Skye’s already waiting for him in a corner booth. She’s sipping a white drink with a yellow umbrella sitting in it.

He quickly orders a beer from the gray-haired bartender and slides in across the booth from her.

“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” he tells her. He doesn’t think was, she’s barely touched her drink.

“No, I saw you pull in while I was ordering. I came straight from dinner with my dad.”

Even though he was pretty sure she hadn’t been waiting, Lance is relieved. He takes a moment to take in the black dress she’s wearing. It’s loose, but the neckline dips low into her cleavage. It’s a bit fancy for the cheap tiki bar they’re in (her idea), so he assumes her father must have taken her out somewhere nice.

He’s distracted by how gorgeous she looks to feel nervous.

“And how was that?” he asks.

“Good. He made me describe the show last week in complete detail and pried into my love life, so nothing out of the ordinary. You’re invited for family dinner on Tuesday, by the way.”

He’s choking on his beer before he notices the glint in her eyes and realizes she’s playing with him.

“That was cruel,” he tells her when he’s finally stopped coughing.

“Couldn’t resist.”

“So he’s supportive of the music thing, then?”

“Very,” she responds. “I was so scared to tell him. I spent all of high school driving myself crazy trying to keep my grades up. I guess I thought I needed to earn my keep. But when I home for Christmas after my first semester of college, I was totally burned out.”

She looks at him like she’s unsure whether to continue or not, and he nods to reassure her that he’s listening.

“The closer it got to the start of the next semester, the worse I felt,” she continues. “When I refused to get out of bed one day, he finally asked me if something was wrong. And when I told him I hated school and had no idea what I wanted to major it, he said I should take some time off, that college would always be there if I was interested, and there was no point in making myself miserable for something I didn’t want. Then we packed up my dorm room and I moved back home.”

“He sounds like a good man,” he tells her sincerely.

“I mean, he doesn’t completely spoil me. He lets me live at home rent-free, but that’s about it. I pay for everything else I need.”

“Still, it sounds like a good deal.”

“It is, not to brag. I know Izzy isn’t close with your dad and it sounds like you aren’t either.”

Lance sighs. His father is something he deals with best by pretending he doesn’t exist.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” she apologizes.

“It’s fine. It’s just that our father is a bit image-obsessed. Very into keeping up with the Joneses, and the Joneses are all heads of multi-national advertising corporations. A guitar-playing lesbian daughter and Uni-dropout son don’t exactly live up to expectations.”

Lance tries very hard not to be bitter about his father, but he generally fails.

This time it’s Skye’s turn to encourage him to continue.

“Not that he’s anything but a hypocrite. Leaving your wife and daughter for the mistress you knocked up on the other side of the Atlantic isn’t exactly image-friendly. I pointed that out to him once, he didn’t take it well.”

Skye looks shocked by the revelation.

“It’s okay, though,” he insists. “Izzy got over it a long time ago and her mum is great, looks after me too, now that I’m here. We reckon Izzy was probably better off not having much to do with our father in the first place. And I’m taking things much better that I thought I would.”

He’s working his ass off juggling two jobs, but he’s getting by. That’s more than he’d ever thought he could do without his father’s assistance.

Neither of them knows what to say at this point, so it seems like a lucky thing when Skye’s phone starts ringing.

“It’s just a text,” she tells him, reaching into her bag. “I really shouldn’t have given it such a long ringtone. I can turn it off.”

“It’s fine, check it,” he insists. “I need another beer anyway.”

A moment to collect himself would be nice, too. He usually doesn’t spend his first dates airing all his daddy issues.

Skye’s just tucking her phone back into her bag when he returns with his beer.

“Anything important?” he asks her.

“Just Bobbi checking in.”

And just when he thought things couldn’t get any more awkward that talking about his father, his ex-girlfriend gets brought into the equation.

“I’m sure that’s a kind way to put it,” he’s not even angry anymore. He’s just tired of all the ways their awful breakup seems to wreak havoc on the rest of his life.

They both sip uncomfortably at their drunks for a couple of minutes before Skye breaks the silence.

“Okay, let’s just acknowledge the elephant in the room,” she says.

“Bobbi the elephant,” he clarifies.

“Well, I don’t think she’d appreciate you calling her that, but yeah. She had a few interesting things to say about your relationship, but since you don’t seem to be literal Satan, I wouldn’t mind hearing your side of the story.”

Lance takes a deep breath to collect his thoughts. There’s no point in bending the truth to flatter himself more, Bobbi (and Izzy, Vic, Akela, and probably even Jemma just a little) has probably told her the worst of it.

“Okay, I first met Bobbi when I moved out here about a year and a half ago. We were really into each other, hooked up a few times and decided to make a go of a relationship,” he rushes through this part, uncomfortable mentioning sex with his ex in front of a woman he really likes. “As it turns out, that was a terrible idea.”

Skye chuckles at this, and it’s enough to convince him to go on.

“We managed pretty well for about four months, but then I dropped out of school and my father basically disowned me. Somehow it got into my head that having a successful relationship would make up for being the world’s most disappointing son,” he’d spent a couple of months in therapy coming to this conclusion. “Terrible plan, I know that now. It’s okay you can laugh.”

The look she gives him lets him know she won’t laugh, but wants him to continue.

“So, as you probably know, the band is Bobbi’s baby, husband, and best friend all rolled into one. That didn’t exactly leave much time for needy boyfriends, especially ones who have put all their self-worth into that status of your relationship.”

Now comes the embarrassing part. Up until this he’s been annoying but excusable. He struggles to meet her eye and he confesses.

“I got paranoid, convinced she’s cheating on me when she’s really just spending all her time practicing and writing and booking gigs. In a spectacular low point, I read her text messages and discovered something about meeting some guy named Danny the next afternoon. I crash their date, only it turns out Danny is seven years old and she’s giving him voice lessons. We have a huge blow-up; I get angry and say maybe we should just end things. She says yes, that sounds like a great idea and I—“

“spend the next week crying your eyes out and binge-eating ice cream,” she finishes for him.

“Oh, you already know about that part. Good. I thought I was going to have to admit something embarrassing.” At least he can joke about it, kind of.

This makes Skye laugh, which in turn dissipates much of the tension in the room. Still, it seems pretty obvious to Lance that he no longer has a chance with her.

“And now?” she asks.

“Now I am living with humiliation and shame of having turned into an enormous jackass.”

Skye seems to accept that answer and turns their conversation towards their mutual love of the Criss Cross Kings. That then turns into her filling him in on all the band’s doings that he’s missed out on over the last few months. They’ve got a ton of shows lined up in the next few months, and apparently Jemma has a new boyfriend who she’s refusing to let them all meet. At least he has Skye to be his friend, even if things have been shot to hell romantically.

Their conversation stretches on for a few more hours, until they both decide they’re tired enough to call it a night and sober enough to drive home. Lane walks Skye to her car.

“This was nice,” Skye says, stopping in front of a gray van.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “Thanks for listening to me dump on you about my dad and… you know.”

“I know.”

“So I’ll see you at the band’s next show, then?” he asks.

Oddly enough, she seems disappointed.

“Are you kidding me?” she asks.

“What?” He’s legitimately confused.

“You’re not even going to try to kiss me?”

“Well, I figured—“

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because she grabs two fistfuls of his shirt and yanks him down into a kiss.

By the time he comes to his senses, he pulling back from him. He remedies this, by placing a hand on either side of her face and pulling her back towards him. It’s a surprisingly chaste kiss, considering all they’ve talked about tonight. But he’s still shocked that she wants to kiss him at all.

“You should ask me out again,” she tells him when they end the kiss.

“I will do that.”

He’s having a really hard time wrapping his head around that kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading what is now the longest thing I've ever written. Hope you enjoyed!


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